Thank you for all your reviews and comments. Yes, I play a bit with the timeline in this piece, and that's on purpose. It's bothered me that, in one ep, Trip and Malcolm have fallen out, and yet soon after everything's hunkey-dorey again, with no in-between. I'm playing a bit with the in-between. I hope you enjoy.

x-x

"That arrow was a near thing, Lieutenant," Phlox said as he cleaned the wound on Malcolm's lower arm. The doctor had already completed his work on Malcolm's side, where the arrow had grazed its path. Putting down the bloody gauze, Phlox picked up a device and began to pass it over the angry gash on his forearm. "But you should be fine in the end." He reached for a gauze pad, and Malcolm tuned out the rest of his recitation.

He felt like he'd been spending a lot of time in sickbay recently. Between being pinned to the hull by that mine, tortured by Suliban, shot in the back, choked, shot again... It was getting to be more than a bit ridiculous.

This time, a ship had jumped into their space, close enough to set off Enterprise's proximity alarms. But by the time he and Trip had charged onto the bridge, the aliens had made contact, and Archer had accepted their invitation to meet on their vessel. Of course, once on board there had been a slight misunderstanding, and the fun had commenced.

Phlox swabbed the wound, and Malcolm hissed against the pain. "Sorry, Lieutenant," the doctor said, not turning from his task. "Done with that now." He reached for a bandage.

The sound of footsteps made Malcolm look up. A quick hand pushed aside the privacy curtain surrounding his biobed and Trip's eyes met his for a brief moment, then he turned to the doctor. "He going to be all right?" Trip asked Phlox.

Phlox looked up from his work. "Yes, in a few days."

"Could you leave us alone for a minute, Doc?"

Phlox blinked in surprise, his brow wrinkling in a frown. "I'm in the middle of bandage -

Trip cut across him. "I'll take care of it," he said firmly.

Phlox raised an eyebrow, but he nodded. Moving away, he slid the curtain closed behind him.

Trip, still not looking at Malcolm, grabbed a stool by its edge and rolled it beside the bed. Sitting, Trip stared down at the injury. He pulled a gauze pad from the tray Phlox had set up nearby. Moving carefully, he placed the gauze over the wound. "You get injured a lot," he said, his voice almost expressionless.

Malcolm didn't raise his eyes, instead watching Trip's hands as they worked. It had been so long since he and Trip had had an actual conversation, he wasn't sure how to respond. "It's part of the position," he finally said.

Trip's hands stilled and he looked up. "You're taking unnecessary risks."

Now Malcolm did meet his eyes. Brusquely, he answered, "They're not unnecessary."

"You jumped in front of that projectile -

Malcolm interrupted. "What would you have me do? Let it hit the captain, or you?"

"It's not like it's your job to -

"No, it's not." His voice came out angrier than he'd expected, so he lowered his tone. "My job is anticipating the danger, knowing all of the possible things that might happen, then making sure they don't. But when I don't do that part of my job right -" He cut himself off, unable to talk about why he'd bollixed it up so badly, and why he was so afraid it could happen again.

"Still, there must be something about all this that you like," Trip said, looking back down. His hands started their work again. "The adrenaline or something."

"I don't try to get shot," Malcolm spat out.

"But you do like the job," Trip said, more of a statement than a question. Still working, Trip glanced up at Malcolm, then down. Malcolm could see his twisted smile, even with his face half-hidden. "I had an old friend, from high school," Trip said, his voice soft.

Malcolm kept silent, not sure of where this going, or how it related to him.

"He started using drugs back in college, maybe even before - always off chasing his next high. Eventually I lost track of him. Then we lost him to the drugs." Trip's hands stilled and he looked up at Malcolm. "I'd hate to - " He stopped, lowering his eyes. After a moment, his hands began working again. He started taping the bandages, smoothing each piece gently across Malcolm's skin. "So it came to me that all this - the rush, the danger - is like an addiction, in a way. Like you're chasing some kind of high." Trip put the final piece of tape in place and looked up, his eyes blazing.

Malcolm couldn't look away. Not that Trip was right, but he'd never thought of it in those terms. And the look in Trip's eyes... God, he really believed it, and...

Malcolm heard someone approaching, the curtain being pulled aside, then the captain's cheerful voice. The man cut himself off in mid-greeting.

Malcolm's eyes were slow to leave Trip's. Once they met Archer's puzzled gaze he tried to put up his usual front.

"Everything all right in here?" Archer asked, his voice having lost its joviality. His eyes moved from Malcolm, to Trip, and then back.

"Yup," Trip replied, pushing his stool back from Malcolm's bedside. "We're good." His eyes held no cheer.

Archer turned to Malcolm with raised brow, and Malcolm simply nodded. He knew he wasn't acting his normal self, but he was distracted by his interaction with Trip.

"Right," Archer said. He'd obviously decided to let the situation pass for now, although he and Trip exchanged a look that Malcolm figured meant they'd be talking later.

Fabulous.

x-x

Clad only in jeans, Malcolm leaned back against the headboard, his bandaged arm resting across his injured side. The motel room was dark around him. Too dark. Standing, he threw the door and window open to the beach outside, allowing the sunlight to stream through. He settled back on the bed.

He'd been released from sickbay just yesterday, only to get to his quarters and find a message from Archer. He'd granted both he and Trip shore leave, saying, "it looked like you two could use a break."

Yes. From Enterprise, and from each other.

Phlox had agreed, so long as Malcolm didn't expose his wounds to water. He didn't think that'd be too much of a problem. He'd never been one for swimming.

Other than the shuttle ride down, he hadn't seen much of Trip, although he knew they were staying in the same hotel. There were others from Enterprise here, too - the captain was sending people down in shifts. Malcolm was actively avoiding them, preferring to be alone.

It was a clean, if not elegant, seaside hotel on a planet they'd visited peacefully (for once) a week or so ago. This was all he really wanted right now. To be by himself in a fairly anonymous seaside hotel, alone with his thoughts. He needed to figure some things out.

He shut his eyes, taking in the scent of ocean on the breeze. Some planets he'd visited had been quite alien, but this one reminded him of Earth so much it almost made him ache. Although there were differences. This beach, for one, wasn't like the beaches in England, which tended to be a bit cold. It wasn't humid and blazingly sunny, like Malaysia. And other than the ocean, the scents were all wrong. Still, though, there was enough familiar here to remind him of home. Trip had grown up on a beach in Florida. Did he also find it familiar?

Their interaction in sickbay - he was not quite sure what to make of that. Their conversation weighed on him.

He stretched the fingers of his bandaged arm, wincing as the movement jarred his injury. What Trip had suggested had bothered him ever since they'd spoken. Trip actually thought he'd done this to himself, purposefully.

It was his responsibility to keep his crew out of danger. But when they were in danger, it was his job to prevent others from being hurt. If that caused him to be in harm's way, so be it.

And yet he'd heard of people doing things like that to themselves, not even realising what they were doing. They were simply in so much pain.

Maybe there was a kernel of truth to what Trip had said. Perhaps he was trying to find a way to put himself out of his misery. He smiled wryly. That'd be a hell of a thing.

It would almost be a relief.

His breath caught. He opened his eyes and looked through the door, out at the blue sky rising above the dunes before him.

A relief.

He let out a slow, measured breath. The thought should have worried him. It made sense that it would. But actually, oddly, he felt at peace. For the first time in a long time, he felt at peace.

x-x

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